Page 131 of To All the Guys I Killed Before

As I weakly push myself to my feet, movement to my right catches my attention, and I glance through the window and see it’s started to snow. Big, fat flakes drift from the dark sky to land on the back lawn, which is lit up like a football field at night.

My escape just got harder. But that’s not my problem right now.

Ignoring my sore cheek and my throbbing shoulder, I force words past the pain in my throat to address the man who refuses to stop. fucking. breathing.

“Which one of us is this going worse for, do you think? You or me?”

CHAPTER FORTY-THREE

Hugo

The nineteen-minute drive to Ray Overton’s is pure terror.

It’s not riding shotgun. It’s at the wheel.

What will I find when I turn into the sleeping subdivision? A dark house where Rue completed her mission and made a clean escape? A mess of police because Overton called in an intruder? Or worse, he managed to overpower her and⁠—

I stamp my foot on the accelerator, and I don’t stop for red lights.

My phone lights up with Pell’s number.

“Where is she?” I shout.

“If you mean your former neighbor, I got no idea,” is his calm reply. “Unless she’s got somethin’ to do with a 911 call just now from the man who conked your noggin.”

“Fuck!” If Overton’s alive enough to call the police, that’s bad. “What time? What’d he say?”

Recognizing my panic, Pell drops the accent and dials in. “At 2:08, and not much. Used his smart speaker to connect to a service that gave his name and address to dispatch. No details about the type of emergency.”

“It’s her,” I say grimly. “Felicity says her jammer battery was dead, and I don’t know if she’s⁠—”

I can’t finish the sentence or even the thought.

“Shit.” Pell falls silent for a beat. “Need an extra pair of hands? Haven’t gotten bloody in a bit.”

“No! I don’t know.” I recklessly pass the too-slow vehicle in front of me despite the haze of snow that’s starting to coat the roadway. Then, I say more quietly, “I don’t fucking know what I’m walking into, man.”

I hear the clicking of keys. “My best cleaners are twenty minutes away, and I got a plane on standby at a private landing strip if you two need to run.”

“Standby,” I repeat.

“Mm-hmm.”

How? The question bounces around my brain, but I can’t pick it up now. I’m taking a corner at fifty in the snow, and he won’t answer anyway, and I’m not sure I want to find out why he has a crew mobilized and a plane on standby before I even knew there was anything I should be standing by for.

What I do know: if Pell’s willing to try to save us, that means he thinks there’s still an us to save. It makes me like him a little, in that moment.

I laugh as I end the call. It’s manic and ends on a choked sob, my foot returning to the gas pedal, my headlights catching the snowflakes as they hurtle past. I coaxed the full story from Felicity in pieces during the drive. It shouldn’t be possible for my fear to spiral higher, but as I roar onto his street, practically taking the turn on two wheels, it grips my throat so tightly I can’t breathe.

The street’s alive with the swirl of police lights.

I steer with my knees while I jam my murder kit under my seat, hastily pull on the cardigan I tossed into the back, and leap from the car before it’s fully settled into park at the curb. The house’s floodlights are blazing, and the lights are on in one of the upstairs rooms.

Rue works in the dark. Light means Overton was awake. Awake means a fight.

A greasy black film crawls across my brain as I run toward the squad car in the driveway, sliding my glasses into place and attempting to smash down my hair. I’m sure I look exactly like what I am: a panicked man who dressed in the dark after being pulled out of bed by a crisis. So that’s what I go with.

The two uniforms are just stepping out of their cruiser when I reach them, and I send up a prayer to whatever saint watches out for murderers and men in love. Please, Saint Olga, let all the bullshit I’m about to spin work and let Rue be rolling her eyes from someplace safe.